Favorite Gay Bar of All-Time

Twilight.

What's a gay bar?

The Spike and Uncle Charlie's were great NYC casual bars. I always liked the old Stud in SF, and I lived in Oakland CA for a while, and used to go to the White Horse - lots of fun. Is it still around?

Has to be Oz in New Orleans. Usually get laid (in the bar!) and get free coke in the restroom. Those Louisiana boys are some dirty, trashy whores!

The Evening Edition. Cocoa Beach.

Tracks in DC was legendary, from the sketchy neighborhood, the endless lines to get in, the multiple bars, and the cavernous space. The outdoor sand volleyball court, and people grilling hotdogs and hamburgers at 4am, it was a gay wonderland.

Splash in NYC used to be fun.

Julius’ NYC.

The Retro, London.

The A house in Ptown. Still has the creaky old dance floor and smells of sweat and poppers.

Also Chaps in Boston. Long gone but the most fun I had in my 20s.

Equus, Philadelphia

Each floor was a "different" bar.. Gone, now. Wish I still had my tee shirt.

Babylon, in Pittsburgh. You would not believe how much hot action went on there!

Tiny, old school, la Garçonnière in Genève. I don't go there much - it's too expensive, sad and bizarre, but it is unique!

The Cock in NYC (the old space, not the new one).

Hula’s....Waikiki Beach

The "12" in Boston. It was a huge unmarked bar at 1270 Boylston Street. I haven't been in that area in 20 years -- it's across from Fenway -- but I'm told the area has been completely gentrified and the bar is long gone.

I’ll second the Retro Bar in London. It has the best jukebox I’ve ever seen.

R11 Equus was a fave too. But it’s basically still there - it became 12th Air Command and now Tabu. Still 3 floors of fun and an outdoor deck. Plus the mirrored Equus horse is still there.

Cafe April and Cockring in Amsterdam.

Club Firestone in Orlando.

R6 I went to Tracks one night when I was in DC for business. I ended up driving my trick's car to his home since he was too drunk. (Like I was any more sober.) This was back in the late 1980s.

I don't remember the names of bars when I traveled, except for the one I mentioned above and two in New Orleans, Bourbon Pub and Oz.

Being from Portland, Oregon I used to go to Silverado when it was located on Stark Street where most of the other gay bars were located. I guess that was my favorite because it had a variety activities happening. Also cheep drinks and willing men.

The Break 8th Ave NYC

The Vatican has a lot going on, if you like younger guys.

Badlands corner of Christopher and West in the Village. Mix of basic ordinary guys and strays. Hot hot men👹great music.

Tabasco in Florence, Italy. Spent an afternoon trying to find it, went back at night and had a blast. Sexy.

Pegasus in Kansas City back in the day. Oh boy oh boy!

Parliament House , Orlando. Still there.

Sidetrack in Chicago. I can’t help but love it.

Twilo NYC even through it wasn’t strictly nor completely gay. Outrageous costumes, Gorgeous men, mixed crowd, awesome music and as close to Studio 54 any club ever got after 54 closed. I remember some of my best times there, and a carefree attitude parking my car nearby all early afternoon Sunday. Some of the friends I made there I had for decades and never knew what to expect but a great time! Junior Vasquez tore the room up every Saturday!

The Dugout, but mainly for their Sunday beer blast. From the mid 90s to the mid aughts. Hottest hottest guys...was that first wave of bearded bear men chic.

I spent many a Sunday getting buzzed to really amazing music on their jukebox and flirting around, making out in the corners with random hotties. Then one of those hotties asked me out on a date...and we’ve been together ever since.

Man those days were a total blast.

R31 Remember the platters of hot dogs that were sent out? And drinking in the street? I barbacked there for a couple of months.

r16 I was in college then and spent many nights at the "12" also Spit and Metro. Back then it didn't really matter if you were in a gay club or not, the best clubs attracted everybody. We all had our fun high out of our minds not minding who anybody was or what they were doing.

My favorite bar of all time is the Pyramid on Ave A in New York.

Just have to ask, did every city have a gay bar called Tracks or Traxx? Seems like it.

Southern Nights in Orlando is the one that I went to the most in my 20s.

The most fun single night was at G.A.Y. in London.

Pyramid. Not strictly gay but.

The Power Company, Durham, NC. Around 2am when the white people went home, gay black men took over and vogued to throbbing house grooves. I can still feel that wall of subwoofers rumbling in my chest.

Boy Bar was the best ever. 80s&90s

Although mixed... The Catch, LA was a hot scene.

...

Menjo's in Detroit. Naughty times there. Madonna used to roll there supposedly.

R37, the recently had a reunion or something for the Power Company and 500 showed up. I heard about it a month or so ago.

Remington's in Toronto, back in the 90's. Hot go-go boys who danced naked with hard-ons and, if you tipped a fin, would jack off and shoot on your tongue.

Oh God, Remington’s!!

R19 you forgot iCandy in its history.

R24 you forgot to sign your post "B Singer"

“ [R31] Remember the platters of hot dogs that were sent out? And drinking in the street? I barbacked there for a couple of months.”

Oh god, those hot dogs. Yes, I remember. Ha. They contributed to my hangovers.

And yes ...early 90s, before douche bag Giuliani killed all the fun. Hanging on that street for the beer blast. I remember this toothless old man used to stagger around wearing lipstick, begging guys to let him duck their cocks. Those were the days!

OMG, Remington's in Toronto. The American dollar got you lots of perks in that place back in the day. Is it still standing?

Club Happy Tap in Windsor, Ontario used to have super loose dancers too. Isn't Montreal the only place to see fully nude dudes in Canada these days?

Raffles , in Philadelphia. Great piano bar, with country/western line dancing upstairs.

Nobody mentioned the Mine Shaft?

I only went to Remington’s once but saw the hottest Russian muscle guy dance there. I was mesmerized and it must have shown because he approached me and asked if I wanted to, “go upstairs and break some rules.”

R50 Da vas gudd sex Tuny

Crowbar, East Village. Friday night 1984 nights. In 1992. But a great EV dive with dancing for post-college crowd.

Starlight - late 90s glam/hipster lounge. Great people. The anti-Chelsea, smart, interesting or artistic scene.

1980s in Austin -- Boathouse, The 404 dance club where X was sold at door and The 505 a converted house downtown.

Backstreet Detroit. Such a fun time!

Backstreet in Atlanta was fun too.

A little New York gay bar nostalgia.

SoHo in Amsterdam. Three-story bar in an old, typical Amsterdam brick building. Unpretentious and fun. This was ten years ago.

Ripples in Long Beach, California. It closed this past Saturday night after 47 years. Good times.

I used to love hanging out at Dick's in the East Village in the 90s. Tiny dive bar with the best jukebox in NYC. Sunday nights were PACKED!

There was also a bar on 3rd Avenue somewhere in the 20s or 30s that was very unassuming. I went to that one several times in college.

Circus/Arena in West Hollywood, CA. huge and so much fun! If you didn't like a particular type of music on the dance floor you just walked up the stairs or down the stairs into another area.

Those bacon wrapped hot dogs with sauteed peppers and onions was the ultimate cure for hangovers. Well at least it's sobered you up enough so you could make it on the 101.

Those clubs got razed (in 2016 I think) for luxury condos.

In NYC, first Uncle Charlies in the West Village and then Boy Bar in the East Village, so many sexy guys, such easy and fun hookup.... and meeting boyfriends.

Gay bars all used to have blacked out windows back then. A straight friend gestured at Uncle Charlie's to newbie me. They fist each other in there, he said knowledgeably.

79XINGCROSS in London in the early 2000’s was the best! They men were actually good looking and masculine and they were hardcore and aggressive and had no hesitation when it came to going after someone they liked. I used to go upstairs and lean on the railing and guys would come up within seconds cruising me.

It’s sad because that and most of my other favorite London bars/clubs from the early 2000’s are gone now.

Yes, R63, for a few years 79CXR was as good as it was expedient (and saved £45 in taxis back and forth to Vauxhall).

Bars: The Cock (the Ave A one), Crowbar (NY), Roosterfish, Akbar (LA), Big Chicks (Chi), Barcode (London), Polo Lounge (Glasgow), Phoenix Bar (Nola), Spijker (Ams), Albury (Sydney), Propaganda (HK), The George (Dublin), Cazador (Madrid), El Cangrejo (Barça)

Clubs: Paradise Garage, Sound Factory, Roxy, The Saint (NY), iT (Ams), Tracks (DC), Le Queen (Paris), Copa (Key West), Trade, Heaven (London), Berghain/Panorama (Berlin), Warsaw (Mia), Midnight Shift (Sydney)

R65 - great list! You really captured some of the best worldwide - at least from my era. Though Cockring and Argos in Amsterdam would also be on my list - but perhaps that was a personal obsession.

Sidetrack in Chicago is a great gathering spot.

Pulse in Orlando.

R65, she sure gets around, don't she?

Prime Time 2 in the Hudson Valley. The 90's best worst gay dance club halfway between NYC and Albany. Ravers, drunks, hippie trolls, elder gays, L7 riot grrls, bad drag queens, and James made for the best coming out time a youngish gay could have. The drinks were watered down and the apple blossoms were ripe.

R70 that sounds like a Stefon club review: "New York's hottest club is ..."

The Boy Bar and Pyramid. Them were the days.

R70 Hey I used to go there. I got horrible poison ivy fucking on the wet ground under a full moon in the apple orchard. Oh there were some real tasty trash boys and men to enjoy!

r10

I lost my virginity from a guy I picked up at Chaps in Boston when I was in the Navy. I stayed at some gay hotel that was in the same neighborhood. I came all the way up from Groton CT to have a gay weekend.

^^^ Too funny r74.

Gay hotel, probably the Chandler Inn.

Chaps was great. It wasn't where the "cool" kids went, that was Buddies' on Boylston Street. I hated that place.

Chaps was torn down, as was the whole block, to make way for luxury condos.

Buddies was flooded (it was in a basement) by a fire sprinkler disaster above and never recovered.

The 1270 was finally closed down when an underage girl was raped in a downstairs bathroom.

It's now a straight sports bar.

The Ramrod/Machine is on its' way out. The building has been sold and will be demolished to make way for student housing.

I'm afraid gay bars, as we once knew them, are a dying dog.

R75

It was the chandler inn. It might have been Buddies the bar where I picked up the guy.

Uncle Charlies in the West Village never had blacked out windows, you could look right in and see all the handsome guys.

I used to like Floyd's on Anaheim in Long Beach. It's now Alex's Bar (Fangtasia from True Blood). Many a beer bust in there.

Gee, r77. Do you think maybe r62 was talking about Uncle Charlie's at 38th and 3rd?

In the '80s my favorite bar in Southern California was called "1," at the corner of Melrose and Poinsettia.

It was known as a no-attitude, be-nice-to-people place and it was fun to visit alone or with friends. They played KROQ and college radio-style music with comedy videos interspersed instead of the dance music at other bars.

Does anyone remember this place? Because of the name It's pretty much un-Googleable.

The Stud, San Francisco.

Easy, the Yard of Ale, in Boulder, CO!

My friends would laugh at me because of its reputation for older men who would paw and flirt with anyone under 30, but the Napoleon Club in Boston was some of the best nights I've ever had in a bar. Down the street from the famous Jacques, it was for "gentleman" and word was that Liberace and Judy Garland would go there after nearby nightclub engagements. (Back when there were nightclubs that featured such names.) Great piano players, sing-alongs, sloppy drunks, wide-eyed hunky guys from New Hampshire, transvestites (that's what they were--not drag queens, just guys who liked to dress up and go out for a fancy night on the town), a few druggies, a very handsome bartender, sweet guys, hustlers, Back Bay snobs, a drop-dead romantic who would hold my hand and tell me he loved being next to me, a guy with no arms who drank champagne by lifting the glass with his feet, the guy with the voice like Frank Sinatra, the zonked out drunks (me, a few times), the legendary coat check lady (Mary?), and a few pro athletes from what I understand. And that was a Tuesday!

I remember as a young gayling getting picked up at Napoleons’ by a smoking hot Guatemalan hustler with 12” tearing away at my virginal orifice. Let’s just say I avoided him like the plague after that one encounter.

I did love Napoleon’s vibe and sad to see it go. Club Cafe does a”Napoleon” night now.

R63, I remember 79CXR was very upfront about being cruisy, but it had some strange characters. I remember a bleach blond guy who used to hold court at the bar singing 1930s love songs. And then there was The Paperboy- he would go round handing out newspapers to guys he liked the look of. In the margins of the pages he had written that he was a complete submissive, and that you could do anything you wanted to him. Some responded. I saw him in a few other bars too.

My favourites were the Vauxhall Tavern and the Retro Bar. Great music, fun crowd.

Argos - Amsterdam

Scheune - Berlin

Woof - Berlin

Stammbar - Brussels

Eagle - DC

Compton's - London

79CXR - London

Strong Center - Madrid

Hot - Madrid

The Spike - NYC

Eagle - NYC

247 - Philadelphia

That ginger in OPs photo is hot! Tight ass, and a hole in the crotch of his jeans for easy access! Sign me up!

Santa Fe on Melrose in L.A. Closed a loooong time ago.

I came out in my 20s, right after college, and moved to Memphis for my first job. There was a great, sprawling bar/club called Amnesia there. I was young, cute, and “the new boy in town” and man, did I have a lot of fun. It had several areas—the quiet bar, the loud bar, the big dance floor area with stage for drag shows, and patio bar with swimming pool. I only saw someone in the pool once. Lots of great memories from that bar.

I only lived in Memphis from 1993 to 1999. I hear they spent a lot of money expanding and remodeling in the 2000s, but it didn’t save it. Another “straight” club took over the building for a while, but now it’s just vacant.

Nowhere Bar, Boiler Room, Julius, Cubby Hole, and Pieces are the best NYC dive bars, IMHO.

STELLAS

[quote] Babylon, in Pittsburgh.

When was that? I was more of the Pegasus/Zack's era.

It does seem like many cities had bars either named Tracks or with Tracks/Traxx in its name.

I seem to remember a bar in St. Paul with that name....had some hot times there!

The Family Zoo, formerly at 820 S.W. Oak, in downtown Portland, Oregon. It was a gay bar under several different names from 1957 until the 1990s. I was a regular around 1981-1982.

How many of these closed since COVID?

Heaven in London

What was the name of the gay bars in Atlanta during the mid-80's? I remember going to them, but I don't remember the names. They were in mid-town.

The WORKS on Amsterdam Avenue near 81st. (NYC) A generally wholesome GOOD looking crowd of Preppy and Yuppy types when I frequented there in the mid to late 1990's.

Woody's in Philly will always have a special place in my heart

[quote]The WORKS on Amsterdam Avenue near 81st. (NYC) A generally wholesome GOOD looking crowd of Preppy and Yuppy types when I frequented there in the mid to late 1990's.

I always found good international dick at The Works: Irish, Italian, Spanish, Brazilian, French...that I remember off hand.

A decade or so ago, when visiting Atlanta, I went to the Eagle with my friends. People were amazingly nice. Coming from NYC, I had never experienced that in a gay bar.

As for NYC, I did like the Works on the UWS and some of the East Village bars.

I met most of my gay friends in New York in the 1970s at the Ninth Circle. I don't know that any gay bar was my favorite, but this was the place I went to most often (I lived on 10th Street). A jukebox that played a lot of non-disco music was one of its best features, as I loathed most disco.

In LA, I went to the Westside version of the Apache most frequently. Again, it was a place where I made friends, including a boyfriend named Craig who had the second-biggest cock I'd ever encountered.

I met a guy named Jim at one of the beachfront cafes in Venice—much more my speed than any bar—and he captured my heart for the rest of the time I was there. He was also probably the first guy I knew who had what we would eventually call AIDS. He started wasting away in 1978 and eventually left LA, whereupon we lost touch. One of the things I love most about our digital age is the way we are now able to stay in touch with people when we move to different cities.

I lived in Portland, OR, for a while, and went to a bar called Everybody's Place. I liked the bartenders there in particular, Chris and Bill. I had a boyfriend at the time, so I never picked anyone up there. I just talked with Chris or Bill. Hope they have survived.

[quote] People were amazingly nice. Coming from NYC, I had never experienced that in a gay bar.

I've been in places in NYC, Philly and Pittsburgh and they all have a real standoffishness about them.

But once you go either farther west or farther south you get more of a friendly attitude. Some places were just very much a nice house party attitude. Come in, have fun, what can we get you? I love those kind of places way more than the Stand and Model emporiums.

Coming from NYC I went to a gay bar in San Francisco ( this was in 2005) and people would start conversations with me etc. This rarely occurred in places like g lounge or Splash in NYC.

The Cock in Amsterdam. Great atmospheric bar, great music and dance floor in 500 year old stone basement space and a very hot upstairs back room for sex.

Followed by Argos across the street - the oldest leather bar with ship ropes and ancient sailing stuff covered in dust for hundreds of years. And an even more raunchy basement sex room.

Both located in a seedy, atmospheric old alley near the red light district.

Fritz in Boston. Pretty low key, no attitude, good brunch.

ABC. Armory. Backstreet Cove

The fun of atlanta back then.

Once, when I was 19 or 20, I took Amtrak from DC to Boston, and a cute blond guy sat next to me... He was Paul Wood, owner of Woody's. Sweet guy.

Fritz in Boston was great. I watched soccer World Cup games there when Germany played Italy. A couple gay Germans were watching, and some local Boston queens kept asking them if they didn’t really want Italy to win bc the Italian players were so hot (they really were hot).

The Germans only scowled.

There's a bar in the old Fritz/Chandler Inn space, now the Staypineapple Alise Hotel, it's not officially gay but is in fact, de facto gay due to the clientele and neighborhood.